Good Cop, Bad Cop

It's almost freezing in Poughkeepsie, a small town located in upstate New York. This is where The Space is located – a recording studio for independent artists where Brian Harding and Amalie Bruun of local New York duo Ex Cops recorded their debut album True Hallucinations.

The band were the first to be signed to Other Music, originally a NYC-based record shop specialising in underground, rare and experimental music that entered a partnership with Fat Possum Records (Youth Lagoon, The Walkmen, Christopher Owens) last year. Harding explains how the signing of the pair came about. “I recorded this short EP in a bedroom and then I brought it up to Other Music, which is like my favourite record store. It was totally just like an unsolicited, cold call sort of thing. And I gave them like ten copies of a CD-R and they sold all the copies that day.”

When choosing who to record this full-length release with, Harding said it was a no-brainer to go with John Siket (Blonde Redhead, Yo La Tengo, Sonic Youth, etc) in the production chair. “Our manager, Guy [Benny], actually asked who would I want to work with if I could work with anybody. His was the first name that came to mind and it just ended up that Guy and him were really good friends. It was super random and I'd been a fan of his work so it came together very organically.” Bruun agrees, “I just felt a great emotion in him. He was very vocal, he was very involved and he always had an opinion about each song but would give it in a very cool, relaxed way.”

Despite the largely positive reviews of True Hallucinations, including a particularly positive Pitchfork review and praise from such heavyweight critics as triple j's Richard Kingsmill, Harding and the band already seem restless. “I'm actually here right now in The Space, just kind of writing some new stuff,” says Harding. “We're always working on new stuff and we want to start recording real soon. Like, whenever we get done with touring.”

That seems to be a few months away yet, as the band plan to tour across America first, starting in their hometown of New York and ending up in Los Angeles with a final show in West Hollywood. Harding says they're apprehensive about their first real tour. “We haven't toured at all; we've just played New York City, we haven't played outside.”

Despite this the band are making leaps and strides with their live shows. According to Bruun, “We're having a lot more fun playing, it sounds better, a lot more people are showing up and everyone seems to enjoy it and have a good time.”

While the band steer clear of rock show clichés – pyrotechnics and inflatable pigs – Bruun says they're partial to the projections of colours and imagery at live shows, a la The Velvet Underground and Pink Floyd. “For our record release show we had this awesome guy that projected like those old acid water test things,” she says. “It made it really fun to play shows, like as an all-around experience, not focusing so much on the band or us but really focusing on the art and our music.”

Harding is queried if there's any plan for some Australian shows? “Yeah, we'd love to,” he says. “I mean just looking at our Twitter and stuff, we've got a lot of Australian love. We'd love to come out sometime.”

He also says the international success they've received is surprising to say the least. “It's crazy, I was really happy with the music and I thought that it was good but I didn't think it would end up being heard in Japan and Australia and other parts of the world.”

Hopefully if the album does well we'll get to see the Brooklyn duo in the flesh real soon – psychedelic projections and all.